Social media is all the rage. With Facebook Messenger as the most downloaded app in history, we can say with some degree of certainty, social media is important, to say the least. When building your company’s social media presence, there are several items that you need to consider first, in order to be successful in your social media management process for your small business.
Map your brand’s Social Media Graph.
Before you head down the road of social media management for your business, you need to create a social media graph. But what and how is the best way to create one? Begin by identifying the stakeholders that influence the presence and perception of the brand in any way. Institutions like the media, customers, vendors and competitors, your tribe. It’s key to know who they are, how they are positioned, where they are active online, and how they are all connected.
Listen. Often social media conversations can speak volumes.
Find the conversations that are important, and then find the best way to listen. It’s important to target the messages that are most relevant and important for your brand. It’s also important to establish key phrases to monitor and establish some sort of monitoring system to help gather data. After you’ve gathered data about the needs, sentiment and intent most important and relevant to your brand and your competition, you must analyze the information.
Analyze the data gathered on the social media platforms.
Identify what strengths, trends, gaps opportunities or threats that your brand may face in the marketplace. After you’ve identified the gaps, calculate the share of voice that is most relevant to you and your competition. Once you’ve completed that analysis, its time to set goals.
Set goals. They mean everything in social media.
Taking the information obtained through your in depth analysis, it’s paramount to set goals for your social media program that tie into the overall goals of your brand. Establish tools to measure your goals accomplished on your website, blogs, and your news aggregator.
Who are the key influencers in your industry?
Identify who are the key influencers in your industry, and how they are driving the conversation. Find those people that are most likely to help you spread your message, or to make your message go viral. Key influencers can help to spread your message to acquire new members of your tribe. They can help you build a new customer base. Their message can help you to craft your content strategy for your social media goals.
Form a content strategy.
After you’ve listened, set your goals, analyzed your data, and found who are the key influencers, it’s time to create a content strategy for your small business. Using this knowledge will allow you create timely, interesting and influential content to the right audience, on the best platform. Yes. Your content strategy can include Facebook advertising for your small business.
What tools and social media management platforms should be used?
So you know your audience, and determine what they want, you can now determine what is the best way to allocate your finite resources in the most effective manner. You need to decide what platforms to use, then create an editorial calendar using your content, with a strategy laid out for a four to six month period. If that period is too long to start, try a two week period, then gradually build up from there.
Create content. It will convert.
Like Gary Vaynerchuck states, we live in a content rich economy, with a chance to create new content every moment. Write, make videos, create images with infographics. Make certain that all of social media branding has a consistent message so as to not lose your message. It’s best to establish a policy or to even hire a professional social media consultant to manage your social media program.
Use social media management to engage. And do so whenever possible.
Though it may be easy to broadcast your message, you need to remember that the number one rule of social media is to be social. Make sure to keep monitoring, respond to comments and mentions. Look out for buyer intent statements that are appropriate responses that facilitate conversations. Make the important conversations happen.
Measure your social media results.
The final and probably the most important aspect of social media management is that you measure results. You must absolutely be certain to keep track of all content and the types of responses. Once you know what’s working and what’s not, adjust and tweak your strategy according to your results.
Social media management mastery for your small business can occur with the right amount of effort. You’d be surprised with how many companies in your industry haven’t taken the time to really create a cohesive social media strategy that is effective for your business. Social media can be scary, at first, but as with anything, proper planning should help in overcoming trepidation, fears and hesitations that can exist.